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Originally Posted by redbreegull
1. how does it feel adhering to a belief system which is not only thousands of years old, but which has continually mutated and changed over time to the point where modern Christianity likely bears no resemblance to Jesus' real worldviews or teachings?
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Ah wow. This is something I think about a lot. In some ways I am glad, about all of it - because it seems inevitable that a belief system that is thousands of years old, would also mutate and change over time. Christian beliefs became doctrines and creeds, in a time when people still believed that the earth was flat and that if you went far enough into the sky, you would reach heaven. Aristotle believed that if you compared a woman’s menses a man’s semen, you could clearly see that one was a perfect being with pure emissions, and one was incomplete. So if we are interested in a religion with ancient roots, do we dogmatically insist that we hold every tenet that was established in a pre-empirical society? Or can we look at what we’ve inherited from previous generations, and consider how everything fits together for us, given that we live in a totally different historical and cultural context?
I find it liberating and discouraging, trying to work out Jesus’ real worldviews and teachings. Of course, nobody can know for sure. So I’m left with the accounts that were collated and canonized by old men of the establishment over a thousand years ago, and the current conjecture of (mostly) old men of the establishment, today. So...not entirely straightfoward.
I suppose the reason I bother, is that my religion is only in small part about my beliefs. I chose to join a religion because I was interested in good action (mitzvot, basically?) and growing up in a secular home with no strong cultural identity, I felt very much alone and adrift in the chaos and meaninglessness of everyday modern life. I had actually been more interested in Judaism for a while, but resigned myself to the idea that I couldn’t properly convert or properly become Jewish. And before that I went through a period of time where I became increasingly involved with Krsna devotees in my hometown. I was on the brink of joining the commune as a new devotee when my family and friends stepped in and counseled me to take a step back. I actually quit my job at a deli, because I was convicted by the idea that even working at an establishment that sold meat, would affect my karmic destiny. (sort of. I also hated working at the deli and it was a convenient reason to quit. I remember the owner saying "Oh great, well thanks Emma" in this really seething and angry way, down the phone. It was a moment of catharsis, in some ways.
Shortly after that I read Hesse’s Siddhartha, and Narziss and Goldmund - I was really in a swirl of religious ideas for a couple of years after leaving high school. Eventually, lost, and confused, and very very stoned, I ended up in a psych ward in Melbourne, acutely psychotic, and manic. I was admitted involuntarily and detained for about three weeks. At that stage I believed the end of the world was imminent so there wasn’t really much left to do except sit around and smoke cigarettes and wait for it to happen.
Rehabilitation from psychosis took a long time - I was discharged in Oct. 2000, and even when my elder son was born in Aug. 2005, with all the emotional turmoil and sleep deprivation that came with that, I was a little unstable. By then, to be mentally healthy, I had to accept that any new belief I adopted had to be rigorously reality tested, to avoid relapse. So simply coming into Christianity because I changed my beliefs, wasn’t an option anymore. But I still yearned for answers, basically about ‘right’ action - what is right action? What would be right, and meaningful for me to do? While I was pregnant with my elder son, in 2005, I took one of the last courses I needed to complete my BA in philosophy - it was about explanations for religion based on evolutionary psychology - group selection theory stuff (which I believe has been somewhat debunked). I read a lot of Scott Atran and Daniel Dennett in that course, and came across a reading that stated human communities with a religious identity seem to persist longer than communities with secular identities. When I considered the evidence and realised that Christian religious groups for example have persisted for hundreds, even thousands of years, I began considering heading back to church, just to be part of a community.
A lot of internal stuff happened when my elder son was born. I think the birth of your first child often has that effect. It isn’t just about what you do for yourself; how you answer these questions of ‘right’ action and meaning. Now you are forced to make decisions every day, that will influence and affect a new human being, in some cases for the rest of their life. The urge to seek out a community became unbearable, and I lived in a predominantly Christian culture with a Christian family background. So - I joined the Christians.
Christian doctrine is not really a complete set of guidelines for living. I was talking to a flatmate of mine, post-pyschosis, pre-Christian-conversion...and she said her Lutheran upbringing didn’t make her a Christian, but it gave her a kind of sounding board. It was a point of reference. It was the first time I had considered that religion could be something like that in a person’s life, and that’s what I aim to give my children. Not a set of beliefs. But a point of reference - we live in a secular society, but it evolved from a culturally Christian past. Understanding the history of Christianity is a starting point for understanding the history of humanity. It’s a lens, I guess. I actually did become a theist some six years ago, and I pray with my kids at night, in a pretty ritualistic and hopefully affirming way. But unless they come to me and ask to talk about God, I don’t talk to them about my theism.